5279EMULSION PROJECT
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KODAK VISION 500T 5279 · DIGITAL EMULSION STUDY

Grain is not an overlay.
Grain is the image.

Our goal is to reconstruct how exposure, finite silver-halide sites, dye clouds, interlayer inhibition, printing and scanning form one image.

Explore the versionsRead the research
V49 current visual release08 research cycle12-bit 5.7K internal master
CURRENT VISUAL RELEASEV49latest release with reviewable media on this site
RESEARCH CYCLE08organized by topic; experiment IDs live in the evidence appendix
NEXT VISUAL RELEASEmeasurement-dependentnumbered only after new measurement or a verifiable correction
CURRENT VISUAL RELEASE · V49
NEXT VISUAL RELEASE · measurement-dependent
RESEARCH CYCLE · 08

Do not suppress chroma noise—prevent the wrong RGB noise from forming

V49 fixes the remaining ownership error in V48. V48 gave 2383 ownership of deterministic colour but still added a formed-minus-mean residual from another observer graph in display RGB, producing lifted-sensor-like red, green and blue points in shadows. Kodak publishes only each record's marginal 48-micrometre Status-M RMS, not their cross-covariance. V49 therefore does not invent a coloured joint law: it publishes one symmetric common-density component while the image is still a negative and lets both material observers see that same formed negative directly.

V49 is the current density-domain baseline. V48 remains a reproducible ownership-error witness; V47 remains a historical morphology comparator. Legacy internal V47–V86 labels remain immutable experiment IDs.

2383sRGB / MAC VIEWING COMPANION
Mac sRGB view of the 48-nit cinema observer; professional master is Rec.709/BT.1886
SCAN / DIsRGB / MAC VIEWING COMPANION
Mac sRGB view of the scan / DI observer master; not a Blu-ray or UHD disc encode
01
CORE THESIS

Noise is not an overlay.
Randomness participates in image formation.

Digital noise is usually added after the picture exists. Colour-negative randomness happens before the image is complete: whether finite silver-halide sites develop changes dye amount, local density, DIR release and neighbouring layers together.

After development, silver is bleached and fixed away; printing and scanning observe dye clouds. We therefore simulate a dye-cloud field seeded by silver-halide events, not permanent silver specks floating over RGB.

Baseline principle: reconstruct film, printing and scanning; keep creative grading outside the model.

See equations and key code →
V49 · LATEST PUBLISHED VISUAL WITNESS

A standard observer changes observation—not the emulsion.

  1. Official 1 nm observerIntegrate 2383 through the CIE-published 1931 2° one-nanometre table instead of an analytical approximation.
  2. Keep the master nativeThe 5760×4320 12-bit master is never softened for a web page or player scale.
  3. Review declares its scaleReview integrates linear observer light over display pixels so sharp resize cannot fold above-Nyquist grain into coarse texture.
  4. One picture authorityThe movie is encoded first; the still is then decoded from the same final movie frame.
Read the V49 density-domain correction
RESEARCH CYCLE 08 · FOUR THEMATIC THREADS

Research is organized by questions—not by making every finding look like a film version.

The current reviewable release is V49. The next release is measurement-dependent: it will be numbered only after a new measurement or verifiable correction. The current engine is V49 conservative common-density Kodak 5279 / 2383 baseline. Legacy internal V47–V86 labels remain immutable experiment IDs for scripts, reports and failed experiments.

0114 EVIDENCE NOTES

2383 printing and cinema observation

Traced printer light, LAD, 2383 H-D and dye spectra through xenon, the CIE observer, projection flare and display companions, removing duplicate density shaping and ownership errors.

CURRENT CONCLUSION: 2383 material response and a period cinema result are not the same identifiable quantity; illuminant, batch, printer control and viewing conditions must be declared separately.

028 EVIDENCE NOTES

Scan, DI and home-video delivery

Layered negative scanning, Cineon/DPX, display transforms, scale integration, still authority and encoding. The 5.7K raster is an internal reconstruction/DI master—not a Blu-ray deliverable.

CURRENT CONCLUSION: The next visual release will derive separate Blu-ray and UHD witnesses from one Scan/DI master, declaring resolution, 4:2:0, bit depth, range and AVC/HEVC compression; an HDR remaster is not assumed.

Read the four research threads and evidence appendix
VISUAL ARCHIVE

Visual version archive

Real media comparisons are retained from V4 to V49; research-only revisions do not fabricate imagery.

OPEN →RESEARCH CYCLE · 08

Research paper

Four research threads—material measurement, multilayer randomness, 2383 projection, and scan/delivery—with small experiments retained in a traceable appendix.

OPEN →METHOD

Method

Equations, flow and key code from RAW through the negative, 2383 and Cineon.

OPEN →